Element Christian Church

God calls us to become the kind of people through whom His blessings flow. Bless the people you work with, bless whoever God sends you through the day, bless the next generation; just bless everyone.

God gives us permission to live and have a plan. We don’t need to live as the rest of our culture does living week to week with no eye towards our legacy. Jesus did not get out of the grave for us to be like everyone else. He called us to be a blessing.

Being a mom is NOT an easy job. Being a parent is hard, being a Christian parent in our culture in even harder so I have asked 3 of my friends to join us on Mother's Day. These ladies are from three different walks of life, but they are all Mothers (hopefully one of them will resonate with where you are at). Jessa, Pam & Amanda share some of their story of being a Christian Mother.

Joseph’s brothers were redeemed to once again share life as a family, the Israelites were redeemed to eat with God on the mountain, and we are redeemed to forever eat meals in Christian community and with Christ Himself.

In the Genesis story God has been working on everybody. When everyone actually knows and follows God everything will work out because the closer they grow to Jesus, the closer they will grow together.

We have all been like Judah at some point. • We have been separated from God (like Joseph and His family) and Jesus died in our place to bring us together, • We should have been punished like Simeon and the brothers, but Jesus was punished in our place • We should have DIED, but what we have received, by trusting in Jesus, is His harvest of righteousness.

We are to be dependent on Jesus, but not in a passive way. We’re active, but not in an independent way. It’s active dependence on Jesus.

“…We believe that the central meaning of the Resurrection is victory. Thus our traditional image is more vibrant and noisy, and it rings with a victorious shout. The Resurrection is a victory over sin, death, and the devil, and a victory over the dark forces that enslave us, despise us, and wish to destroy us.” Resurrection says, He is not here, but has risen which means that tomorrow doesn’t have to be the same as today. Ascension says, why do you stand looking into heaven? It is not a loss of Jesus’ leadership, but a magnification of it.

The great gift of the Christian life is that Jesus connects us to God through the Holy Spirit. The World needs Jesus, the Holy Spirit lives in us, and we need to come humbly and serve and bless those around us so they will learn about God.

Why does God not answer prayers with a “yes” whenever we ask? 1) You are praying, but the request may be off, and in those times, and God says, “No.” 2) Sometimes the request may not be a bad one in itself, but timing may be off. 3) Sometimes people ask for really good things with really good hearts, and that prayer does not get answered, and there is not a human answer “why”.

This story shows that there is room in God’s family for the worst of us.

Providence is understating that God made everything and everyone, and He is still involved. Not only is He still involved, He also rules over history.

Better than the gift is the giver of the gifts. Better than the things He gives is the person He is. We need to love not just what God gave, but who He is.

In the book City of God, Augustine says we need a well ordered heart. His definition of well ordered was “Loving the right thing, to the right degree, in the right way, with the right kind of love.”

What do we learn through Jacob’s reorienting his life? 1. We are no one 2. We can change the world 3. This gets done by the power of the God’s Spirit. Jacob was no one, but God changed the world through him.

Romans 12:19 Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.”

God does not count our sins against us, which means we have a message to give to people who are lost in sin. That message is a message of Hope, it is reconciliation with others and God.

We don’t need to second guess what God is doing. We need to trust because we live in dark world and many times we cannot see, so we trust the only one who truly can see.

For those who love Christ, righteousness is the standard. But there are no human means to achieve righteousness. The Church has long specialized in piety and chastity and temperance in the futile effort to attain righteousness apart from God. God called Abraham a friend and declared him righteous, but why? Abraham believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness. Once again, in His loving pursuit of sinners, God has set the standard then graciously provided the means to achieve it. What will happen in God’s church when His people stop mimicking righteousness and start living it?

In Genesis 31 we see Christ moving, changing, and growing Jacob and his family, while Laban continues to seek only his own selfishness. The inevitable happens when Jacob and his family move away from the abusive Laban. God uses the last 20 years of suffering to produce great character and faith in Jacob, just like He uses the hardships in our life to mold us into the people He made us to be. It is often through times of suffering that our faith is restored and our hope renewed. Through our tough life experiences the goal of scripture is that we should be drawn to repentance because we understand that God is good. Our goal is not to have our problems disappear, but to be more like Christ. We give thanks to God and repent of sin because Jesus forgives, Jesus restores, and Jesus heals.